Crossovers are a compromise, each and every on of them replete with evil. Personally i find an XO right where it is most easily detectable a compromise that i choose not to make.

Count the octaves. The same criteria would make the midwoofer in any 2-way with an XO > 1000 Hz a full-range as well.

You are sure? Every driver has some break up issues. There may be more IMD up high, but less than a midbass in a cone + dome in the critical band. And is that measured IMD important? Certainly some other measured distortions in the few studies extant have been shown to be irrelevant (most notably THD). None that i know if that coorelate IMD to sonics. And what do we gain by making the "supposed" compromise to cross this low? No lobing and phase coherence.

With all the compromises necessary to design a speaker, the poor performance of even the best speakers compared to the ultimate potential (i estimate that the best are noymuch over 10% of the way), it is entirely possible to design 2 completely valid speakers that are very different.

Measurements are a tool to help design a speaker. But there is very little understanding of how they those measures correlate to what the ear/brain percieves. In the end what is important is how well the speaker (with all the other kit in the system, they cannot be ignored) commuicates the emotion of the music to the listener.

And the speaker pictured does a very good job of that and at a surprisingly low cost. A clear success. Nitpick it all you want, it does the job.

dave

Correlation of distortion to realism of reproduction is very well understood. Irrelevant? Ouch.

Choice of 3" at 350Hz 1st order is yours. How it really performs is easily measured.

IMD that is grossest isn't at the top, it is with the low end sum and difference tones.

I can't be sure about your 3" drivers IMD and break up behavior, but based on multiple measurements of various size drivers, and auralization using multiple drivers with separate tones v with mixed tones make me certain that you haven't done similar experiments.

In a matter of minutes I set up and tested several different size drivers with swept sine combined with 350Hz tone. The smaller the driver, the worse the distortions, and the worse the sound. For comparison, identical drivers set up with fixed tone in one and swept tone in other are compared for IMD free performance. It's night and day.

Designing for fun and pleasure is easy, designing for performance is a discipline.

Correlation of distortion to realism of reproduction is very well understood.

It is? Where are the papers?

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How it really performs is easily measured.

No-one has a proven measurement scheme that correlates with sonics... the Harman guys likely as close as we have, but it is crude, disputed by other experts and yet to be independently verified.

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I can't be sure about your 3" drivers IMD and break up behavior, but based on multiple measurements of various size drivers, and auralization using multiple drivers with separate tones v with mixed tones make me certain that you haven't done similar experiments.

In a matter of minutes I set up and tested several different size drivers with swept sine combined with 350Hz tone. The smaller the driver, the worse the distortions, and the worse the sound. For comparison, identical drivers set up with fixed tone in one and swept tone in other are compared for IMD free performance. It's night and day.

It is easy to create an artificial scenerio that yields data in one dimension, which may help a skilled designer fine tune, but until it is correlated with what the ear/brain perceives it means little.

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Designing for fun and pleasure is easy, designing for performance is a discipline.

If the fun & pleasure are those of the listener enjoying the music (the end use of the process) then the designer needs to be disciplined, skilled, and creative.

A diyer designing to have fun & get pleasure from the execution phase of his project is irrelevant to this discussion and purely in the experience of the diyer.

Clearly you refute anything written, and can't believe that what occurs in simple multitone experiments translates directly to music reproduction and broadband communication both in theory and in practice.

They produced pretty big sound -- and that in my room which is not small. Many have heard them and will back that up. They won't outdo big horns + big woofers at what they do well, but they have their own assets which those cannot touch.

Believe what you believe... the truth is in the listening. This is one of many valid approaches. Not seen often enuff IMHO.

Well I'm going to do a horn system, for fun, to see if it is as satisfying as my little FR basement rig. It will be louder, for sure. Not as rude as the rants that repeatedly show up around here I hope, but maybe. I won't be listening to tones other than Pano's test. OK and low frequency fun.

They produced pretty big sound -- and that in my room which is not small. Many have heard them and will back that up. They won't outdo big horns + big woofers at what they do well, but they have their own assets which those cannot touch.

Believe what you believe... the truth is in the listening. This is one of many valid approaches. Not seen often enuff IMHO.

dave

Yes, truth is when microphone picks up input signal that isn't clogged up with >2% distortion products, the listening is much more realistic than when microphone is picking up 6%-10% or more distortion.

Coupled with a tendency to choose louder of two systems, and exposure to loud live sound reinforcement systems, result is high level acceptance of bass distortion >24%, and compression driver systems with distortion >6% covering the rest.

Driver manufactures enjoy working with reduced engineering and build out costs that gullible minds accept. Builders of consumer sound gladly follow suite, and those looking to mine deep pocket status seeking audiophiles have lots of spin to work with.

Clearly not enough real measurements are done by speaker builders in my opinion. So many look at driver data, see a relatively flat published FR, ignore actual performance across applied bandwidth, and conclude with shining success, only to rapidly tire of creation.

Some truly don't care at all about the fidelity of a playback system. If they can hear a familiar beat and a bit of melody their mind takes them on an emotive journey.

You may read, but clearly do not work practical exercises to gain real experience of inverse relationship of distortion and fidelity.

Measurement microphones repeatedly show the gullibility of the human mind. Working with the microphone allows learning, training, and listening discipline.

A real gem of knowledge is easily gained: Take a driver with less than 1% 2nd harmonic listen to single tone in voice range, and then add in 5% 2nd harmonic of fundamental. The augmented sound is louder, and a change in timbre depending on phase behavior of driver may impart an edgy sound, brightness, sense of contrast, and/or other effects. One is truth, the other distorted truth.

Test scenarios are very real. Real drivers, real signals, real results. Hiding poor performance behind masking/distracting effects of program material as interpreted by listener only proves gullibility of human mind, and most certainly doesn't demonstrate distortion as irrelevant to high fidelity transmission of information.

Andrew . . . I'm not quite following where you're going here. We probably all agree that lower distortion is generally "better", that some kinds of distortion sound worse than others, and that there are a lot of bad speakers and undiscriminating listneners out there. Many of us may disagree with the implication that dave doesn't do testing or is unduely "gullible" in his listening (and might question the unnecessary incivility of the implied insult).

It's more peculiar in light of the context . . . you seem to be suggesting that there's something inherently wrong with using small cone drivers over what appears to be their intended range (as opposed to . . . what?) without offering up actual comparative evidence to support the rejection. Do they actually have notably higher distortion (of the "bad" kinds)? Are there perhaps other tradeoffs (and possible advantages) that weigh on the choice? And what are we to say to not-notably-gullible experienced (and sometimes trained) ears who simply say Speaker A sounds "more musical" or "more listenable" or "more true to the music" than Speaker B? Are the preformers on stage stupid and the engineer in the control room not? Or are we maybe still measuring the wrong things, or wrongly weighting the measurements that we've got . . .